I'm proud to say that I'm a VH/VH player and I don't cheat or exploit AI stupidity.. I would like to hear about the success and failures of other VH/VH players in this forum, who don't cheat or exploit. Personally, I've never come across a challenging campaign until I played EB. Infact, I've yet to win a EB campaign on VH/VH.
Romans
I expanded to the Coast of N.Africa, all of Gaul, and the Eastern front deep into Germany. Then war with Spain broke out. We shared a border so I was not suprised. Spain crushed my armies with endless legions of gold chevron soldiers. She pushed me out of Gaul all the way to Northern Italy. I had to muster all my forces to safe guard my Italian states that lay on the brink of capture. As a result, Carthage reclaimed all of the African coast line. Since Rome is unable to produce soldiers with experience, and Spain can, my armies were no match. I had polybian units too. I bankrupt myself on producing armies and garrisons in North Italy. It got to the point where Spain had 3 fully stacked legion on my boarders, I had a sizeable garrison and no movable armies. I hate Garrison warfare since the AI is to stupid and can't put up a fight. So I left the game at that.
It's also worth noting here that Carthagian general units were able to win two battles against me in N.Africa. They are like panzer tanks, almost impervious to spears and ground units alike. But I learned from my mistakes and began targeting them with calvary, skirmishers, and Triarii from the start of the battle.
Baktria
I held all the Indian provinces, took many Parthian cities, and reclaimed a few states from the Seleukeia Empire. I had a war on two fronts with Parthia and Seleukeia. Ptolemaioi made peace with the Seleukeia, so they invested all their time on me. Battle after battle, I made some headway in Parthia, but could not break the Arche Seleukeia. I was unable to create elite units, for some reason, and money started to grow thin. The Seleukeia Empre finally recaptured all her towns and began attacking my homeland. Parthia at this point made war with Germany so I wasn't being relentlessly attacked, but it didn't matter, with no money I was open season for Seleukeia and they took my capital. I called it quits.
Germany
Since the Romans can't produce experienced soldiers, I thought this campaign would be a breeze. I took all of Gaul and every province to the East till I shared a border with the Getai. Then the Romans came. For some reason I was unable to contend. My two large armies took their two largest armies, but the outcome of each fight was a total disaster. Pyrrhic victories left my armies weakened badly. My two largest standing armies were reduced to one after I reorganized my units. Rome sat on my boarders for many turns, with 2 fully stacked legions. A smaller legion came along and layed siege to my town, I moved in and planted my army right next to the Roman legion. Usually, the AI will move her inferior army and drop the siege. My town had a sizable garrison and my movable army was fully stacked. Instead of scaring the smaller legion away, a fully stacked legion moved up and attacked me. I lost bad. I had no back up armies since money was always tight with the Germans. I could only afford about two fully stacked at any given time plus a few garrison. I could have mustered all my garrisons but decided to write the game off as a bad loss.
Early Triarii routed almost all my Germanic troops. I tried to out flank their spears but ended up getting hit by Princeps. Roman calvarly (namely the general units) murdered my generals badly.
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These are the only campaigns that I've played worthy of noting. I found them all very fun. I blame my Roman defeat soley on the fact that I could not create experienced legions. Money was never an issue until I started losing conquered land. Another reason for my low funds was in my desperate attempt to kill Spain, I created enough fleets to blockade all her ports. In the end it was a stupid move, it did little to slow the advance and rebuilding of her armies.
Has any one here been able to keep up a good game on VH/VH without cheating or exploiting the AI's stupidity? My games lasted a long time, but always ended in a loss. Have any of you run into the same problems I have run into? What have you done to counter them?
I know "winning" is highly subjective in a game like RTW. I play till I lose or feel that I've done all that I wanted to accomplish. So far, I've yet to take my borders to there absolute extent (ie-me getting bored and starting a new game).